The Good Fight
by Eaglesgirl
Summary: Angel and Spike are both approached by the Powers that Be with an offer they just can't refuse. Spike and Angel friendship with Buffy eventually joining the fray as a romantic interest. T to be safe.


Disclaimer: I own neither Spike nor Angel... or anything else you recognize.

Timeline: Set five years after the end of Angel. Angel and Spike are both able to survive their final battle but are seperated.

Prologue

* * *

Spike peaked around the corner again before leaning back against the brick wall and taking a drag of his cigarette. What possessed him to even be considering this course? He ran a hand over his face, fingers running over the still unfamiliar lines on his forehead and around his eyes. Oh yes, *that's* why. Spike resolved himself to his course of action and raised his cigarette to his lips again, trying to rally his courage.

The Powers That Be were forcing his hand. He wasn't happy about it and he certainly didn't want to do it, but what choice did he have?

_You could disobey them… run away. _A voice echoed quietly in the back of his head. Spike considered it for a minute, trying to decide. Running away did sound good. Everyone would be happy, well, everyone except for the Powers, but he didn't much care for their opinion anyway.

The vampire sat on one of the crates in the alley, contemplating this new plan. He could find someplace deserted. A ghost town, an abandoned warehouse, some new continent maybe. No, ghost towns attracted tourists nowadays, abandoned warehouses were still too close to humans, and Spike wasn't quite sure where to find a new continent or even an empty island for that matter. Spike pouted to himself and let his freehand cradle his head, thinking. He could always go to Antarctica or the Northern Polar cap; either would give him a good few months of nothing but night. On the other hand, he'd also have a few months of nothing but day and that simply wouldn't do.

Again, the cigarette met his lips, but Spike found that smoking was simply doing nothing for him at the moment. He dropped the cigarette on the ground and stepped on it and allowed his newly freed hand to come up and hold the other side of his face.

Where could he run? Where could he avoid humanity and the sun, preferably? The occupant in the adjoining alley way scuffled around a bit, distracting Spike from his thoughts. He scrunched up his face in concentration, exaggerating his new wrinkles.

Wrinkles.

Damn it, he couldn't run away. He had tried to do that the last three months and look what the Powers that Be did. They punished him. Stupid wankers.

When the Power had first given Spike his so-called 'mission,' he had laughed at them. They gave him a deadline; he had been given three months to do their bidding "or else."

Spike had decided that "or else" couldn't really be that bad. He wasn't afraid to die. He was actually rather lonely. He hadn't seen Angel for years and Buffy had been out of the picture for even longer. He hadn't kept in touch with anyone and no one seemed to care to find him anyway. Death, the only thing the Powers could really threaten an ensouled vampire with, meant nothing to him.

But death wasn't what the Powers had planned. They had physically aged his features five years. They gave him three more months, that's when he had tried to run. They got him when his three months were over anyway and aged him again, another five years. Spike wondered what he looked like now and for a moment hated the fact that he wouldn't be reflected in mirrors.

Spike wished he hadn't put out his cigarette now. He wished he had something to occupy himself as he mulled over his options. His third round of three months would be over at dawn, and he was quite sure that he would age another five years, if not more, if he was unsuccessful.

Spike had no choice and he knew it.

He stood and with head bowed resigned himself to his mission. He rounded the corner into the second alleyway.

He would hate himself forever for this.

* * *

Angel still felt guilty, even after six months. His life was a hard one. Hiding from the sun got easier over time and drinking blood seemed less and less morbid over the decades, but humanity shunned people like him. _Monsters_ like him. As a regular vampire, that hardly mattered, but Angel's soul alienated him from the normal vampires and humanity still refused to accept him. Ever since Wolfram and Hart had been destroyed a few years before, Angel had been on the run, being hunted on both sides. The Vampires and other demons were trying to kill him. The slayers were trying to catch him. The Vampires, he understood. He wasn't sure why the slayers were after him though. Hadn't he proved time and time again that he was on their side?

At first, Angel had thought that they just wanted help or something along that line. He was proven horribly wrong when they caught up with him, put him in chains and told him that the Slayers were practicing a zero tolerance campaign; if there was a possibility that he could turn evil again, he needed to be disposed of. Angel had been able to escape, by what he could only describe as a miracle. The van taking him to his destination had been in a crash. The other car had hit one of the back corners of the van and the back doors had warped enough that Angel had broken the lock, thrown open the doors, and escaped into the pre-dawn. He had been on the run ever since.

The loneliness had begun to eat away at Angel. The Powers that Be knew that and tried to bribe him with the promise of a companion. He gave in and he regretted it every day.

"You're brooding again." Angel looked up into the face of his companion. It felt like looking at a child, so young. But no, this one was only just a few years younger than he had been when he was turned. In the human world this was an adult. Still, compared to Angel, this was a child, maybe even an infant.

Seeing that Angel didn't planning on answering, the companion continued, "I wanted it this way."

"It's not right." Angel argued. "This is the worst hell and it's eternal."

"No. My hell was worse. Trust me, it was worse. I might not be alive now, but I feel like I'm more alive than I ever was. What I lived wasn't a life, it was a sham."

"They'll hunt us forever."

"Well, there's not much use turning back now."


End file.
